Box Office: ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ rules over ‘The Help’ to win a second straight weekend

This weekend’s box office kept “Apes” in charge of the local multiplex even as “The Help” came calling. Unfortunately, the rest of the frame’s new debuts may have suffered from too many competing releases in the marketplace.

Showing incredible word of mouth, “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” grossed another $27.5 million in theaters this weekend for a stellar $104.8 million in just 10 days. The Rupert Wyatt prequel could easily match Tim Burton’s “Planet of the Apes” which grossed $180 million in 2001. It’s become the second solid hit for 20th Century Fox this summer after “X-Men: First Class.”

In second place and not that far behind “Apes” was DreamWorks’ “The Help.” The Emma Stone and Viola Davis melodrama found $25.2 million over the weekend and a five-day total of $35.3 million. That’s substantially higher than pre-release polling indicated and DreamWorks’ first major success since moving the company to Walt Disney Studios last year. DreamWorks third release, “Fright Night,” opens on Friday.

Scaring audiences in the third slot was “Final Destination 5” with $18.4 million. While this was one of the more review-friendly installments in the long-running franchise that cume is actually lower than what WB was hoping for. In fact, it’s significantly less than “The Final Destination’s” $27 million debut in 2009. The studio may not have sold a significant hook this time around after seeming to promise the last installment was truly the “final” film.

An even bigger disappointment was the Jesse Eisenberg, Aziz Ansari and Danny McBride comedy “30 Minutes or Less.” The R-rated comedy performed worse than last week’s bomb “The Change-Up.” making only $13 million over the three-day. That’s not what Sony expected when they slotted the comedy in the same release frame as previous hits “Superbad” and “Pineapple Express.” You could argue one of the problems was that the the studio’s marketing didn’t differentiate “30 Minutes” from the latter enough. Especially when considering the poster and outdoor campaign.

Beginning an exclusive two-week run, “Glee the 3D Concert Movie” simply bombed. The rushed to theaters 3D film found just $5.7 million in 2,440 theaters. It seems the “Glee” producers, FOX and 20th Century Fox misjudged audiences appetite to see something on the big screen just weeks after they likely bought tickets for the live tour.

Besides the previously mentioned “Fight Night” other new releases Friday include “Spy Kids 4” and “Conan the Barbarian.”